NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3060 | GeForce RTX 5050 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 12GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 320 GB/s |
| Shaders | 3584 | 2560 |
| Boost Clock | 1777 MHz | 2572 MHz |
| TDP | 170W | 130W |
| Architecture | Ampere | Blackwell 2.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 1,965 | 2,317 |
| Best Price | $250 | $249 |
| Value Score | 54/100 | 76/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050: Which Should You Buy?
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is 6% faster at 1440p ultra (57.1 fps against 54 fps). That is roughly one settings notch — enough to matter if you are chasing a specific refresh rate, not enough to rescue a bad price.
Prices are within 0% of each other ($250 and $249), so the faster card is the obvious pick unless a spec below rules it out for your build.
Two things beyond raw speed: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 carries 12GB against 8GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 8GB cards age badly; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 draws 40W less (130W versus 170W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is 4 years newer (2025 versus 2021), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.